Octopus Energy has today announced the integration of Agile Octopus, the only smart time of use tariff available in the market, with If This Then That (IFTTT), the industry leader in home automation. This makes Octopus Energy the first company letting customers benefit from real-time energy pricing.

When the Agile Octopus tariff was launched earlier this year, Octopus Energy saw consumers modifying their behaviour to consume energy at off-peak times. The obvious next step is to automate this and let customers benefit from real-time changes in energy pricing and build truly smart homes, which this groundbreaking integration with IFTTT enables.

The integration means that consumers can reduce consumption at peak times when prices are higher and the system is strained. By linking with intelligent devices – including smart plugs and appliances such as Hive, Tado and Philips Hue, Octopus customers can develop smart homes that automatically adjust energy usage based on half-hourly price changes.

Agile Octopus works with IFTTT to allow customers to create ‘Applets’ that connect input ‘Triggers’ to output ‘Actions’. This allows users to automatically turn smart devices or appliances on or off when the price of energy changes or when the price of energy will be below a certain level for a prolonged period of time. Actions can also be triggered when consumption in a day, week or month exceeds a particular value.

IFTTT opens the door to connecting energy consumption with thousands of potential outputs, from smart appliances to music streaming, electric vehicle charging and instant messaging updates. This gives customers the freedom to create their own unique systems which suit their lifestyles. For example:

By integrating with Nest or Tado, a customer can heat their hot water, normally one of the highest household costs, at the cheapest time of the day, potentially saving over £150 per year or 40% of the typical cost.

A customer could receive a visual prompt about when to use their washer or tumble drier by integrating with Philips Hue, so a light goes from red to green when prices drop, giving a potential saving of over £30 per year.

Octopus Energy recently paid Agile customers to use energy when the price on the grid fell below zero. Using IFTTT an Agile customer can set a trigger to pay any money saved or even received into their Monzo account or to automatically buy shopping at Tesco.

Greg Jackson, CEO Octopus Energysaid:

“We can make the transition to renewables faster and cheaper if we help people use energy at times when there’s abundant green electricity, or to charge electric cars when prices are lowest. Octopus’s Agile tariff integrated with IFTTT lets customers automate this, so they get cheaper, greener energy with less effort. This kind of technology advance is crucial to adopting the smart grid needed for a renewable future.”

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